


every now and then I fall apart

by orphan_account



Series: (but that's alright) because I like the way it hurts [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age of Ultron compliant-ish, Dom Steve Rogers, Dom/sub Undertones, Eventual Aftercare, Friends to Lovers, Lack of Communication, Love Confessions, M/M, Protective Steve Rogers, Spanking, Sub Tony Stark, Subspace, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 04:44:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6738655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While the Avengers are recuperating at Clint’s “safe-house,” Steve gives in to his dark side and punishes Tony for creating Ultron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every now and then I fall apart

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer** : I own nothing.
> 
> **Author's notes** : Title taken from the lyrics to “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

It’s later that night and Tony’s in the bathroom, trying to ease the ache in his muscles from chopping wood earlier. _That’s the last time I go toe-to-toe in competition with Captain fucking America_ , he thinks. He can hear Steve in the other room, getting ready for bed, and takes one last moment for himself, wallowing in the guilt he still feels for creating the mess that is Ultron, before erecting the cocky façade that he always wears around the other Avengers.

“Hey Tony,” calls Steve. “Still care to see my dark side?”

His interest piqued — because _yes_ , he very much _does_ want to see what makes Cap lose his cool — Tony comes out of the bathroom and takes one look at Steve, reclining on the bed with his belt in hand, before he’s practically throwing himself across Steve’s lap. “Yes, _sir_ ,” he answers with enthusiasm. He’s not so fast, though, that he doesn’t catch a glimpse of Steve’s face first, a look of astonishment etched into his features — whether at Tony’s eagerness or his mode of address — that quickly morphs into understanding.

“Why are you here?” Steve asks intently, once Tony is settled. He puts a hand between Tony’s shoulder-blades and strokes down the length of his back, which is flushed with heat.

“Here, where?” says Tony, clarifying.

“Across my lap, like a naughty child waiting to be spanked,” Steve replies coolly, his voice detached and remote even as he touches Tony with such gentleness, his hand continuing to trace patterns in Tony’s skin.

“And aren’t I a naughty child waiting to be spanked?” sasses Tony in response, which earns him a sudden, sharp smack across the seat of his pajama bottoms. He gasps, the breath knocked right out of him. When he speaks again, all trace of levity is gone. “I fucked up,” he says. “I created Ultron out of a desire to do good, but it all went wrong. I owe you, the team, Fury — hell, the _world_ — an apology of epic proportions, but if the only person I can make it up to is you, and if I can only do that by, quite literally, putting my ass on the line, then I’ll gladly sacrifice my comfort for your peace of mind.”

“This is less about _my_ peace of mind, Tony, than _yours_ ,” says Steve. “I’ve been watching you beat yourself up for days, now, working yourself to the bone to make up for what you perceive as a failure. You want to be punished but it’s not enough, what you’ve been doing: denying yourself sleep, food, and drink. I want to help, Tony, to ease the burden of guilt; and if that means beating you. . . Do I have your permission?”

“I didn’t think punishment was about permission.” After this last remark Tony tenses, expecting a blow. Sassiness has never won him any favors in the past (certainly not with Howard).

But instead, Steve continues merely to stroke his back and occasionally caress the swell of his buttocks through the thin layer of his pajama bottoms. “It is in my book,” he replies.

“Then yes, fine, go ahead. Do your worst.”

“I don’t intend to hurt you beyond repair, Tony. I’ll do no more than you can reasonably bear.”

“Then you’re rather missing the point of punishing me, Cap,” snarls Tony, his hackles rising. Steve’s right, damn him — Tony wants to be punished, and by Steve, but not if he’s going to go easy on him. He wants to be made to feel the full severity of his crime, to be pushed beyond his endurance. “I’m not supposed to _bear_ it; I’m supposed to be in agony before, during, and after.”

Tony has barely finished speaking before Steve’s hand is in his hair, pulling back on his head; and Tony thinks that it should hurt, but Steve’s touch is so gentle that he can’t imagine anything that Steve might do ever hurting him. “Hey, look at me,” orders Steve, and Tony does, unable to disobey. “Where’d you get the idea that punishment is only about pain and how much you can endure? It’s not. Or at least, it’s not only about that. It’s also about healing, for both parties, and forgiveness, on both sides. If I’m going to spank you, or even beat you with my belt, then I have to know that it’ll be good for you and that it’s not merely another task you’ve set yourself to endure.”

After his impassioned speech, Steve releases Tony’s hair and they both fall silent. Then Tony, with his head still buried in the duvet, says, “Howard. And Obadiah.”

“What?” Steve is clearly thrown by this apparent non-sequitur.

“You asked where I’d gotten my ideas about punishment, pain, and endurance. Well, I’m telling you. Howard abused me for _years_ and Obadiah carried on the tradition after Howard’s death, picking up where he left off.”

“Oh Tony.” Steve uses his not-inconsiderable strength to shift Tony so that they’re now lying side-by-side and facing each other. “Why’d you never tell me? Or any of us?”

“I don’t want pity, least of all from you, Cap. I know Howard was a close friend of yours during the war. I didn’t want to shatter your image of him.”

“To hell with Howard _fucking_ Stark!” swears Steve, vehemently. “I care about _you_. I’ve certainly known you longer than I knew Howard for.”  


“And you haven’t once compared me to him, or wished that I were him?” Tony won’t be surprised if Steve says _yes_ ; he half-expects it, rather. But he will be hurt. He’s idolized Captain America for most of his life and wants to live up to the standard that Steve has always seemed to hold himself and his friends to.

“Perhaps for the first twenty minutes or so, when we met,” says Steve, thoughtfully. “I had just been de-frosted, after all. But then Howard became eclipsed by you, and I haven’t thought of him since.”

“Then can you _please_ get on with spanking me?” asks Tony petulantly. If he’s going to be punished, he’d prefer to get it over with rather than wait and drag it out. He moves to crawl back over Steve’s lap, but is stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder, pushing him to lie back down.

“Where d’you think you’re going?” says Steve, his voice undeniably fond. “I’m not going to spank you. Not yet, anyway.”

“Yes, sir,” says Tony, subsiding without a word or grumble of protest.

“And that’s another thing: since when do you call me _sir_?”

“I’m in trouble with you, aren’t I?” At Steve’s puzzled look, Tony elaborates, “Whenever I’d earned myself a trip over their knee, Howard and Obie always insisted that I address them with the respect they felt was their due as my father and father-figure, respectively.”

“And where do I fit in this picture?” asks Steve, honestly curious. “What do you see me as?”

“Captain America’s been my hero since childhood; I idolize him,” says Tony, answering Steve with equal honesty. “Steve, the man — him, I’m still getting to know. But what I know, so far, I like; possibly even love.” This last is admitted in barely a whisper, but Steve’s super-soldier hearing has no trouble picking up on Tony’s words.

“You love me?”

“Yes, Steve, I do.” Tony’s been speaking to the duvet all this time, but now chances a glance up at Steve, who has a smile stretched across his face from cheek-to-cheek, one which Tony hesitantly returns. “Can I—” he starts to say, but Steve, psychic that he is, is already opening his arms in welcome to Tony. He burrows gratefully into Steve’s chest, mewling with pleasure when Steve resumes stroking his bare back and fondling his buttocks. “More, Steve, please,” he moans, arching into the touch.

“Aren’t you worried about associating me with Howard or Obadiah?” asks Steve over the top of Tony’s head.

“Not a bit,” Tony replies, assuredly. “I didn’t respect Howard or Obadiah, not in the way that I respect you. So their correction of my behavior never amounted to anything, unlike with you.” He can feel Steve’s resolve weakening, and pushes his advantage. “Please, Steve. I’ve done wrong and I need to pay for it. Will you help by giving me what I need, what I deserve? _Please_?”

Steve sighs heavily. “All right, Tony,” he says. “I’ll do as you ask, but because I love you. _Not_ because I think it’s what you deserve.”

“Yes, sir,” answers Tony, already moving into position across Steve’s lap. “Make it count. I don’t want to be sitting down comfortably for _at least_ a week. More if you can manage it.”

“I’ll do my best,” says Steve with a chuckle. He had originally intended only to give Tony a few strokes — perhaps a dozen, at most — with his belt and call their account square; enough to lightly bruise Tony, but no more than that. Tony, however, clearly has other ideas, and Steve intends to deliver.

First, though, he’ll warm up Tony’s bum with a good, old-fashioned spanking that’ll last for as long as his hand does.

Steve lifts his hand and brings it down against Tony’s still-clothed ass in a light tap. Tony wiggles a bit at the sudden stimulation, but otherwise remains unaffected. Steve continues lightly slapping Tony’s ass several more times, before increasing the force enough to drive a hard breath out of Tony, who lifts his hips, arching his bottom in a silent invitation for more. Steve accepts, bringing his hand down on Tony’s backside with his full force behind the blow.

Tony yelps at the renewed vigor with which Steve is spanking him, which only encourages Steve and eggs him on. He lands several more blows of equal strength, before yanking down Tony’s pajama bottoms to his knees and admiring the pink flush spreading across his buttocks. He brings down his hand, again, with the same force as before, and watches as a vivid red handprint begins taking shape on Tony’s right ass-cheek; he’s quick to repeat the process on Tony’s left side, as well, so that now both buttocks match.

After that, the blows rain down. Steve spanks Tony methodically: a dozen strokes to one buttock, a dozen to the other, and then a dozen to the backs of his thighs. Rinse and repeat. Tony is in agony, but can do nothing except lie there and take it: he’s asked for this, after all; he _wants_ it; he _needs_ and _deserves_ to be punished in this way, like a naughty child taken over their parent’s knee and beaten into submission.

At last, though, Steve’s hand stills. By now Tony’s ass and the backs of his thighs are red all over; the skin is hot to touch. Steve won’t be the least bit surprised if Tony has bruises by morning. He’s held nothing back, at Tony’s own request. But his punishment is only half-done.

Steve reaches for his belt, which had previously been set aside in favor of conversation. “I’m going to whip you, now, Tony,” he says, laying the doubled-up leather across where Tony’s buttocks and thighs meet. “No need to count. I intend the blows to be hard and fast. This is meant to be corrective; I don’t want to have to do this again.”

“And if I want you to?” Tony dares to ask, the first words he’s spoken since Steve first raised his hand to him.

“That’s a conversation for a later time,” says Steve. “But it’s a conversation we _will_ have, if you really want to. I promise, Tony.”

With that he draws back the belt and lands it with devastating accuracy in the crease of Tony’s ass, eliciting another startled yelp from Tony. He quickly settles, though, and allows Steve to whip him without complaint. Steve whips the same way he spanks: methodically, up one side and down the other, focusing single-mindedly on one buttock until it’s completely red all over before moving on to the next and only then turning his attention to the backs of Tony’s thighs.

Tony quickly loses track of how many strokes Steve has given him. He only knows that he doesn’t want it to stop. While he’s being whipped, all other thoughts and feelings are drowned out; all he can focus on is the pain. Not the guilt. Not the sense of failure, of letting the team (Steve) down.

He doesn’t know what’s coming, if he and Steve will ever get another chance to be together (if Steve will even want him after this is all over, if they make it through). He may have confessed his love (he can’t remember, now, whether Steve has or not), but that’s no guarantee of happiness. And though he might prefer for Steve to be sweet and tender with him, he’ll take Steve’s rage, and the pain he’d rather inflict, over indifference (at best) and outright hostility (at worst).

“Tony, hey. Hey, Tony.” Steve’s voice reaches him as if from far away. He must be more deeply under than he realized. “Hey, you back with me, Tony?”

“Yessir,” Tony slurs, and it’s only then that he realizes he’s been crying all this time.

“You want a little more or are you ready to call it quits?” Steve asks him.

“More — _please_ — more,” Tony gasps, raggedly. “Don’t want the pain to stop; not yet. Focus. I need to focus.”

“Okay, Tony, okay,” Steve soothes him, rubbing his lower back but avoiding, for the moment, touching his bottom with any kind of tenderness. “How ‘bout twelve more, okay? And count them for me. Can you do that?”

Counting. Tony can do that. He nods. “Yes, sir. Anything for you, Steve.”

“All right, then.” Steve secures his grip on Tony’s lower back, holding him more firmly in place, and raises his belt high in preparation. He intends to put all his strength (if not more!) behind these last few strokes — perhaps, then, Tony will be assured of _his_ forgiveness and will therefore forgive himself.

Right thigh. “One.” Left thigh. “Two.” Left buttock. “Three.” Right buttock. “Four.” Right buttock. “Five.” Left buttock. “Six.” Left thigh. “Seven.” Right thigh. “Eight.” Right thigh. “Nine.” Left thigh. “Ten.” Left buttock. “Eleven.” Right buttock. “Twelve.”

By the end, Tony’s ass and the backs of his thighs are a tapestry of colors: mottled reds and blues and purples. Steve would feel guilty if Tony hadn’t asked for this himself and if he didn’t enjoy the sight of his marks on Tony’s body so much. Steve would never do anything against Tony’s will or without his consent. He values Tony, immensely, and wants him to feel safe and loved.

Steve quickly throws away his belt, not thinking of the loud clatter it will make. Tony, still not quite with it yet, jerks at the sudden noise, and Steve’s hand goes instantly to his hair, combing through the sweaty strands in what he hopes is a soothing manner. His other hand he uses to stroke down the length of Tony’s back until he reaches the tender flesh of Tony’s ass. He touches the enflamed skin cautiously, worried about causing Tony further discomfort.

“Is there anything I can bring you?” Steve asks, concerned by Tony’s silence. “A glass of water? Cream for your bottom, perhaps?”

“No, nothing,” Tony says, shaking his head frantically. “Just. . . don’t leave me, please. Not yet, anyway. Let me have you to myself for a little while longer.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Tony,” Steve assures him.

They lapse into silence, then, with Steve continuing to stroke Tony from the top of his head to the soles of his feet and paying special attention to his bottom, rubbing it to help ease the sting. Slowly but surely, with the help of Steve’s ministrations, Tony relaxes, the tenseness draining from his muscles and leaving him loose and pliant across Steve’s lap. Steve takes this as his cue to shift Tony into a more comfortable position, helping him onto his side so that they’re facing each other. He then pulls Tony in close, so that he can bury his head in Steve’s chest if he wishes.

Tony opens his mouth; perhaps to thank Steve for punishing him, Steve neither knows nor cares. He doesn’t want to hear it, not tonight when this is the closest he and Tony have ever been before. “Hush,” he says. “There’ll be time to talk later. For now, just sleep.”

As Tony drifts off, his head pillowed on Steve’s chest, he feels Steve settle a proprietary hand on his buttocks. He shivers with desire, but Steve must take it to be revulsion, for he immediately lifts his hand as if it’s been burned. Tony can’t have Steve thinking he doesn’t want him, so he reaches for Steve’s hand to put it back on him. He clenches and flexes the muscle, if only to feel Steve’s hand move with his buttocks, and falls asleep with a smile on his face.

* * *

When Tony wakes in the morning, it’s to an empty bed with a glass of water, two aspirins, and a note on the nightstand. Steve is nowhere in sight.

Tony leans across the bed to snatch up the note (“ _Please take these, Tony — for my sake, if not for yours._ ”), then gets out of bed and falls promptly to his knees, clutching his bottom with both hands. It hurts! Oh god, how it hurts! He crawls to the bathroom and uses the sink to pull himself upright, only then turning around to look in the mirror. His ass and thighs are unrecognizable: blotches of deep cherry-red that are already morphing into bruises of varying shades; some are in the shape of handprints, from where Steve hit him with all his strength.

And suddenly, Tony is mad. Not at Steve for spanking him — he’d asked for it, after all, in both word and deed — but for Steve not being there with him when he woke up. He walks back into the bedroom, his cramped muscles beginning to ease with the exercise, picks up the two aspirins, and goes back in the bathroom where he flushes them defiantly down the toilet. He’ll be damned if he does as Steve says without the Captain even being there to enforce his own orders!

Tony gets dressed with minimal difficulty, though his pants _do_ pose a bit of a problem; he’s forced to stifle an unmanly yelp of pain as the fabric rubs uncomfortably against his sore bottom. He then heads downstairs where he finds Steve at the stove, fixing breakfast, and the rest of the Avengers arrayed around the dining-room table.

It suddenly occurs to Tony, quite belatedly, that perhaps the others heard Steve whipping him last night. Well and good — maybe they’ll leave him alone if they think he’s already suffered and been punished enough.

“Morning, all,” he says with forced cheer. He’s answered by vague mumbles of greeting. “I’ll just have a coffee and then I’ll be off,” he announces, resolutely giving Steve the cold shoulder and ignoring his burning gaze, which Tony can see from out of the corner of his eye.

He sucks down the murky liquid as if it isn’t burning his tongue, and then makes his escape. He may have avoided actual conversation with Steve for the moment, but he’s genius enough to know that he can’t run forever; that wherever he hides, Steve will find him.

But as he jets towards Norway, he can’t help but re-live the way that Steve had looked at him when he’d first entered the kitchen; the way Steve had catalogued how fluid Tony’s movements were, as if he were worried about how Tony might feel this morning after taking such a serious beating the night before. Almost as if he cares for Tony, even loves him. But that doesn’t make any sense. Does it?

* * *

After all is said and done, once the battle is over and the good guys have won, the first thing Tony does when he gets back to the tower is order a bunch of BDSM-type stuff — whips and paddles and canes and straps — for Steve to beat him with. He then strips naked and gets face-down on his bed, trying to ignore the sickening flutter in his stomach that always precedes anticipated pain, however well-deserved; they can make do with Steve’s belt (again) until the new things come. Perhaps he will even fuck Tony, this time.

Although he has no memory of closing his eyes, Tony must drift off for when he opens his eyes it’s to a dark sky and a brightly-lit skyline, with Steve sitting in a chair by his bed. A blanket has been draped over his naked body; Steve’s doing, if Tony cared to hazard a guess. Who else?

“Steve,” he says, smiling sleepily in the Captain’s direction. “What time’s it?”

“Late,” Steve answers, his demeanor stern, like Tony’s disappointed him merely by waking up.

Tony flinches from what he perceives as barely-contained venom in Steve’s voice, completely missing the look of concern that passes across Steve’s features at Tony’s unusual behavior. “Sorry, Cap,” he mumbles into the pillow he’s buried his face in. He wishes that Steve would get on with his punishment, already; would just whip him and get it over with.

“Tony, look at me,” he hears. Steve’s giving him an order; he _has_ to obey. Powerless to resist his magnetic pull, Tony turns his head again to face Steve. “Come here, Tony,” says Steve, pointing in front of him.

Throwing back the blanket, Tony slides to the floor on all fours and crawls forward until he’s kneeling at Steve’s feet. Is humiliation a kink with the Captain? Tony can live with that if it is.

“Tony, we need to talk,” begins Steve, “Starting with that night on Clint’s farm.” Tony nods, eagerly; he’ll say, agree, or do anything that might lead to a repeat performance of _that night_. “Tony—” Steve gentles his voice, reaching out to cup Tony’s cheek tenderly in his hand. “Did you really want me to beat you? Or were you merely going along with it because it was me; because I suggested it?”

“The truth?” asks Tony, nervously.

“That would be ideal,” says Steve, and Tony can hear an edge of laughter in his voice, so he figures that he must not be in too much trouble.

“The truth, then.” Tony takes a deep breath, preparing to spill his guts to the guy whose opinion he values above all others. “The truth is that I love you and that I would do anything for you; _suffer_ anything, for your sake. Did I want you to beat me? Yes, absolutely. For starters, I felt I deserved it. Then there’s the fact that you seemed to want it, which was also a factor. So in that situation, yes, I wanted you to beat me.”

“Then why the cold shoulder next morning?” asks Steve, confused, and sounding hurt. “Did you even bother to take the aspirins I left out for you?”

“No, I flushed them down the toilet — out of spite,” Tony reveals, “Because I was mad at you. Not for beating me. I’d earned it, fair and square; and I’d asked for it, besides. I was mad because you weren’t there beside me when I woke up. I didn’t know what was coming, if we would make it, or if you would even want me if we _did_. Make it through, I mean. I wanted you to myself for as long as possible, and I felt hurt — not to mention, embarrassed — that you had abandoned me. I thought, maybe, you regretted me. You wouldn’t have been the first.”

“It wasn’t that,” Steve is quick to assure him. “I left because I wasn’t sure how you would feel, if you would even want to see me again after what I’d done to you. I _beat_ you, Tony; I _abused_ you.”

“You didn’t, Steve,” Tony argues. “What we did was entirely safe, sane, and consensual. You did nothing more than I asked; you didn’t hurt me beyond how I wanted to be hurt.”

“And you enjoy that sort of thing, do you? Having your ass whipped turns you on, does it?” Steve sounds harsh, commanding and judgmental. Tony shrinks away from it, from the rage he can feel building, boiling, and threatening to bubble over.

“I like pain, I do; I swear to you. And it does turn me on,” Tony babbles nervously. “But after confessing my love, and you didn’t say anything, I didn’t know how else to keep you with me. I wasn’t going to turn down an offer of intimacy when it’s all I’ve ever wanted with you—”

Steve breaks in to Tony’s frantic rambling. “What do you mean I didn’t say anything when you confessed your love? I said I’d beat you _because_ I love you, not because it was what I thought you deserved. Did you not hear me?” Tony is silent; his mind’s gone blank. “Tony?” Steve is starting to get worried, Tony having been quiet for too long, now. “Are you there, or have you gone off again?” Steve speaks softly to Tony, and so, _so_ gently, now that he realizes their error of miscommunication. “I love you, Tony. Will you come back to me?”

Tony comes to with a shudder. “You love me?” he whispers, his eyes darting up to meet Steve’s before quickly dropping them again.

“Yes. Has no one ever told you that before?” Steve smiles fondly down at Tony, who’s still crouched between his knees, and strokes a hand through his hair.

“Only Pepper and Rhodey,” admits Tony.

“I love you, too, Tony,” says Steve firmly, and Tony shivers at his tone, the hint of command in Steve’s voice enough to send him under.

“Will you punish me now? And maybe fuck me, after?” he asks in a whisper. “Please, sir. I need you.”

“Why do you think I’m going to do anything to you?”

“Have I been bad? Is that why you won’t touch me?” Tony thinks he might cry. And then Steve _is_ touching him; he’s being pulled into Steve’s lap, but not tipped over his knee like he’s about to get a spanking. He’s sitting upright and being encouraged to rest his head on Steve’s shoulder, to curl into Steve’s warmth and accept comfort for the first time in. . . a long, _long_ time; perhaps the first time, ever. At least since Pepper.

“Talk to me, Tony. Why do you want me to punish you, again?” asks Steve, stroking up and down the length of Tony’s bare back. “Haven’t I put you through enough pain already? Do you like that sort of thing; is that it? Do you prefer pain to tenderness?”

“It’s not that I enjoy pain more than tenderness, but that it’s all I’ve ever known or been shown,” says Tony, haltingly. “I do get off on pain, and I do enjoy it. But given the choice I’d prefer a mixture of pain and tenderness. Not solely one or the other.”

“Okay, I can work with that,” Steve assures him. “Now, why do you want me to punish you?”

“I thought you’d want to make me pay for my mistake with Ultron for a long time to come,” says Tony. “Plus, I left the new Avengers facility without permission; I hadn’t been dismissed, yet.”

“You weren’t a prisoner, Tony. You were free to leave whenever you liked.”

“So I’m not going to be spanked?”

“No. At least, not just yet; I want to wait until those bruises of yours have healed more before I mark you up again.”

Tony snuggles closer to Steve when he hears that spanking is still on the table. Steve is just looking out for him, Tony realizes, which is more than any other bed partner (with the exception of Pepper) has done for him before. “And you don’t mind my being. . . submissive? In bed, I mean?” he asks hesitantly.

“No, Tony, I don’t mind at all,” says Steve. “In fact, I highly value your submission. I want to be allowed to take care of you and do things for you. And on that subject, right now I’d like to rub some cream into that bottom of yours. Those bruises look pretty painful.”

“You did well, Steve. It’s only been three days and I still can’t sit comfortably!” Tony is excited by the prospect of (eventually) getting Steve to beat him some more. “I couldn’t have asked for better. Thank you.”

“I’m not sure it’s all that appropriate — you thanking me for beating you. But you’re welcome, all the same. I appreciate the sentiment.”

Steve scoops Tony up in his arms like he weighs next-to-nothing and carries him over to the bed, carefully placing him face-down on top of the duvet. He then ducks into the bathroom in search of some cream, returning soon after with a bottle and squirting some into the palm of his hand. He begins to rub Tony’s bottom with the other hand, using soothing but firm strokes to work the cream in and thereby ease the pain of his bruises, which start at the cleft of Tony’s ass and extend some ways down the backs of his thighs.

“From now on we’ll be doing this every time I spank you, Tony,” Steve warns him. “No more putting me off.”

“Yessir,” slurs Tony, having been put deeply under by Steve’s ministrations, first, and now by the command in his tone.

“Good boy,” Steve praises Tony, who preens at the compliment.

Lightly patting Tony on his bottom, Steve gets up to wash his hands, returning within moments and shedding his own clothes before climbing onto the bed beside Tony and pulling the covers up over their naked bodies.

“Now, to sleep,” he murmurs, throwing an arm over Tony’s waist and pulling him in close to his chest. “After all, tomorrow is another day. We can talk more, then. Maybe I’ll even be persuaded to make love to you.”

“I’d like that, sir. Steve,” Tony mumbles, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Tony,” answers Steve, smiling fondly at the man in his arms. His dreams will be pleasant tonight, he knows, and hopes that Tony’s are, as well.


End file.
